Wilting Rose
by From Spark to Flame
Summary: A tear streaked down my cheek. I clasped her hand between mine. I could feel her heart beating under my hands. It sounded so feeble. As if it would die out any minute. “I don’t need anything. Just you.” She sounded so weary. So tired. DMHG


Disclaimer: Harry Potter does not belong to me. Only to JK Rowling. The poem belongs to Thom Gunn. It's very beautiful poem too...

A/N: Once again, no life....

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_Your dying was a difficult enterprise._

_First, petty things took up your energies,_

_The small but clustering duties of the sick,_

_Irritant as the cough's dry rhetoric._

_Those hours of waiting for pills, shot, X-ray_

_Or test (while you read novels two a day)_

_Already with a kind of clumsy stealth_

_Distanced you from the habits of your health._

"Draco?" Her voice called out to me, raspy from its unuse. I raised my head to look at my love. She was smiling. How could she smile? How could she smile when she was dying?

"Yes love? Do you need something? Pain reliever? Food? Are you thirsty? Do you need me to call Poppy?" I couldn't help but let the panic and worry show in my voice. It was hard to stay calm when my love was laying in a hospital bed, attached to an array of tubes and machines to keep her alive.

"Shh" She lifted her finger shakily and brought it to my lips to silence me. A tear streaked down my cheek. I clasped her hand between mine, relishing the warmth. I could feel her heart beating under my hands. It sounded so feeble. As if it would die out any minute. "I don't need anything. Just you." She sounded so weary. So tired.

I laid her hand back down and sat on the side of her bed. I ran my hands trough her long, bushy hair. Her breathing evened out and she instantly fell asleep.

I kissed the top of her head. And sat down, watching over her.

_In hope still, courteous still, but tired and thin,_

_You tried to stay the woman that you had been,_

_Treating each symptom as a mere mishap_

_Without import. But then the spinal tap._

_It brought a hard headache, and when night came_

_I heard you wake up from the same bad dream_

_Every half-hour with the same short cry_

_Of mild outrage, before immediately_

_Slipping into the nightmare once again_

"Hermione?" I walked into the room and saw my wife already in bed, the sheets covering her delicate body. She was reading!

"Yes Love?" She acted so normal. As if she was fine. As if she wasn't just in the hospital a few days ago.

"What are you doing?" Of course I knew what she was doing. I just couldn't believe it.

"Reading of course." I blinked and then sighed in exasperation.

"Hermione, you know that it's not good for you to read" I replied earnestly, snatching the book from her feeble grip. She pouted. She actually pouted. She was so calm. So collected. How I yearned to be able to lighten up. But my wife was dieing. "Honey, go to sleep." I told her. She gave me a weak glare before settling into the covers. I gave her a peck on the lips. Before turning off the lights. I closed my eyes, drifting off to sleep.

A scream. My eyes snapped open and I looked at where the scream had come from. My wife was screaming and thrashing in bed. Another nightmare. I woke her up, and consoled her. She tried to pretend nothing was wrong. She went back to sleep. But I stayed awake, watching her. Until another nightmare started.

_Empty of content but the drip of pain._

_No respite followed: though the nightmare ceased,_

_Your cough grew thick and rich, its strength increased._

_Four nights, and on the fifth we drove you down_

_To the Emergency Room. That frown, that frown:_

_I'd never seen such rage in you before_

_As when they wheeled you through the swinging door._

_For you knew, rightly, they conveyed you from_

_Those normal pleasures of the sun's kingdom_

_The hedonistic body basks within_

_And takes for granted—summer on the skin,_

_Sleep without break, the moderate taste of tea_

_In a dry mouth. You had gone on from me_

_As if your body sought out martyrdom_

I held her hand, as Poppy wheeled her into the Hospital Wing. Poppy was yelling. Yelling for people to move out of the way. She was yelling to the other nurses to get something or another. They wheeled her, quickly, up to the ER. And there, I had to part with my sweetheart. My love. I gave her a quick kiss on the head. "I love you Hermione." I stroked her face, tracing her features with my numb fingers. Her eyes, her cheeks, her cute button nose, her lips…I leaned down and gave her another kiss. On her lips this time.

She just looked up at me with her wide doe-like eyes in a daze. She mumbled something, but I couldn't quite discern what it was. Her voice was quite and feeble. It didn't sound like her. Her normally strong, riveting voice. Her face was My heart skipped a beat. My love was on the brink of death.

They wheeled her in to the ER, leaving me on the outside, looking lost. I wandered around the room, like a lost puppy. I stiffly sat down on one of the chairs there. Tears slipped down my cheeks. I buried my face in my hands, crying. What would happen now?

_Once there, you entered fully the distress_

_And long pale rigors of the wilderness._

_A gust of morphine hid you. Back in sight_

_You breathed through a segmented tube, fat, white,_

_Jammed down your throat so that you could not speak._

I walked through the double doors, bracing myself. The operation was over. Hermione was alive. Poppy said that she was in a horrible condition though.

I gasped. There she was. Lying in the same bed. The one she always laid on. Still smiling. I ran over to her. I collapsed next to her bed, sobbing. How could this happen. She used to be sooo…so healthy.

Now, once again, she was living off of machines. And tubes. And morphine. And still she was smiling. That wonderful, beautiful, strong smile.

_How thin the distance made you. In your cheek_

_One day, appeared the true shape of your bone_

_No longer padded. Still your mind, alone,_

_Explored this emptying intermediate_

_State for what holds and rests were hidden in it._

She looked so thin. So delicate. Like a rose. A beautiful, pale, wilting rose. The sheets pooled around her body, but I could still tell. She was all bones, no skin.

I hastily wiped my tears. There was no use crying. She was still alive. That was all that mattered.

I had to be strong. If not for me, then for her. For my Hermione. For my rose.

Yes, i would stand strong. Until her dying day.

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Despressing oneshots are so fun to write...review please! I have a very interesting thought...I've had my stories added to many favorite's lists of many readers but, I've only had like half as many reviews...Why is that? Is it so hard to type "Awesome story" into a text box? That's all I ask for here peoples...All I ask for


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